The papacy, inquisition and Saint Guinefort the Holy Greyhound

Rist, R. (2019) The papacy, inquisition and Saint Guinefort the Holy Greyhound. Reinardus. Yearbook of the International Reynard Society, 30 (1). pp. 190-211. ISSN 0925-4757 doi: 10.1075/rein.00020.ris

Abstract/Summary

Just before 1261 the Dominican inquisitor Stephen of Bourbon visited an area of south-eastern France known as the Dombes, in the diocese of Lyons and there found that women were venerating a certain St Guinefort as a healer of children. The Church's censure was not just a ban on a non-orthodox cult, or a theological statement that animals could not be saints, or a crackdown on magical and heretical practices - although it was all these things. It was also the condemnation of a healing cult that had got badly out of hand. The legend of St Guinefort the Holy Greyhound reveals the medieval Church engaged in a familiar struggle: to balance popular piety with orthodox teaching.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/81816
Identification Number/DOI	10.1075/rein.00020.ris
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies (GCMS) Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Humanities > History
Publisher	John Benjamins Publishing Company
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